I was today years old when it took me, a music game player of 20 years, all this time to embarrassingly realize that in Pop'n Music, the skinny notes denote the upper buttons, the wider notes correspond to lower ones, and that the screen is laid out such that the lanes roughly correspond to where each button is physically, to boot. There was design put into that screen layout after all! I just thought you had to memorize all the colors and their positions this whole time!!! There actually is hope for me playing nine buttons after all!!!!! 
- He/him
- freelansations.com/
A most of the time Japanese>English game translator and writer and all the time dating sim wonk.
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in reply to @iiotenki's post:
Hopefully that helps you enjoy pop'n music even more! The game can be very rewarding because of the vast variety of music in the games.
KeyboardMania thankfully had the design of the notes falling approximately where they are positioned on the keyboard. That game would have been a nightmare otherwise! I always loved playing KeyboardMania - the "spiritual successor" Nostalgia is fun, but it just isn't the same.
Thanks! I've always had a distant respect for Pop'n and now that I finally figured it out, I feel like I'll finally be able to properly up my game and be able to play to a decent degree like others I'm into ahaha.
And I've never played KeyboardMania, but that's reassuring to hear it's got a similar philosophy. I'll have to give it a shot next time I run into a cabinet. I've seen a few Nostalgia units here and there and, yeah, aesthetically especially it just doesn't scratch the same itch for me as classic Bemani.